Step 5: Finishing

This is a rose sculpture I TIG (GTAW) welded at school. It is made from left-over stainless steel scraps that were straight off the shop floor at my school welding shop. I believe this project embodies the topic of this contest in a few ways. The first and most obvious being that it was completely constructed from scrap metal. And not just typical scrap...the scraps in our shop go through a series of re-uses until they reach a size that is no longer easily used in class and is then shipped to the scrap yard for recycling. I made sure to grab the majority of my scraps from the end bin to make sure the scraps had been re-used as much as possible before I began building with them. Secondly, the topic of my piece is a rose which is an embodiment and symbol of nature's beauty. I dedicated roughly 55 hours of shop time to obtain the final product to replicate that beauty as closely as I could. Lastly, the material I used for the project was stainless steel. I did this to give the final piece a certain level of complexity both visual and inherent. It stands as a icon that something as industrial as steel can be used to create one of nature's softest, most stunning symbols. It also shows that this relationship between industry and nature can be renewable and sustainable...hence the "Stainless" aspect of it.

<p>Steel is really magical! From a scrap turned into an artwork-- a masterpiece! Everyone demands for it. There are also artists from the Philippines that's why there are many Steel Supplier in the Philippines.</p><p>www.powersteel.com.ph</p>

<p>I am in search of a very solid steel rose for a gift. If you have one for sale please text me 8153017609. Will need it to be shipped and will pay for shipping. Please contact me. Thank you</p>

Great tutorial I was able to tweak it a little bit to get it how I wanted it but at the the end the result was truly amazing. Sand blasted it and put several coats of clear coat to give it a shinny look.

<p>i like the rose and would like to make some!</p>

I am making this right now in my welding class, any tips or suggestions?

<p>I haven't seen such beautiful <a href="http://www.regentsteel.com" rel="nofollow">metal</a> rose before. Such a flawless art. I am definitely going to try it for myself. Will soon post the image.</p>

here is my take on the stainless rose

this is my work!

Hahaha, are those spoons!?! That's pretty cool and really creative. I was looking at the picture and I was about to comment on how smooth you were able to make the contours of the petals, but then it struck me...all of those petals have the exact same shape! My first thought was, &quot;Oh, he made a mold or plug and hammered them into uniform shapes.&quot; About a spit second after that thought, my brain made the connection and I knew they were spoons! It looks great. I feel it resembles other flowers more than a rose, but still a cool idea. I really like found art sculptures.

<p>Nice instructable... However I wanted something easier so I made mine just from a can and a piece of wire.. but I think it looks nice anyway. (total spend time cca 2 hours)</p>

<p>This is just beautiful! Great artistry! What program let you do this at school? Who did you give it to?</p><p>Sophia Liam | http://www.metalsteelfabricator.com </p>

<p>Made a rose for my girlfriend for Christmas this year, using your tutorial as a guide. Made it from 22 gauge steel, and blow-torched the entire thing when I was finished to give it an all-over blue hue. Finished it off with some clear spray paint and it turned out pretty nice. Good job on the Instructable!!!</p>

thanks for showing how you did this rose, supper good looking rose, i too have been looking on the 'net to find the how too. I an going to make my 'rose' out of brass shim stock. <br> <br>I really appreciate your tutorial. <br> <br>

What does stainless rose flower made by 316 stainless steel or 304 stainless steel? I have a review the difference between <a href="http://www.stainlesssteelblog.com/2013/07/whats-difference-between-304-and-316.html" rel="nofollow">304 stainless steel and 316</a> stainless steel. I think it will supply a little knowledge for you. Thanks

This helped me so much I have to create a bouquet of these for a project and I had no idea where to begin. I'm more of a mechanic than a welder, but I was just wonder how much would making one cost? I have to buy my own metal and my teacher needs an estimate.

Thanks for the walkthrough, this was my first real metal working project! I TIG welded this with a Lincoln Electric Precision 275 TIG welder.This was an awesome project to do. I used 24 ga. mild steel for all the petals and leaves. We didn't have any rod around, so i made the stem from turned down allthread. I tried making the prickers out of the 24 ga. but it was too thin to build up properly, so I wound up just beading up welds. Also, instead of using mild steel filler metal I used 304L rod, which actually added a real unique coloring element once I blued it. The base was made out of a piece of 5/8&quot; flat stock. I took a plasma cutter to the sides, to give it the striations. Finished up by a nice bluing and oil bath! Roughly 35-40 hours of throwing misbent pieces, swearing and fun later! Thank you so much, I had a great time doing this!

Looks great. You did a very good job of making your petals consistent. That is definitely the hardest part. I'm glad to see it also took you a long time to finish. My first one took forever, but I can do them in less than half the time now! <br> <br>P.S. Good idea for a simple, weighed base.

I have been flipping trough different ways and ideas how to make roses/flowers from steel before. First one I made roughly 10 years ago in school for a &quot;rustic&quot; gate, from mild steel. I'm bummed out though that I didn't have the patience to read all these comments in here, because I would have wanted to steal MIGDHORSE's idea about the curled petals, looks really nice ;) <br> <br>So here's my 20 cents on the matter of building it: <br>As I said, I have made steel roses before, from mild steel and 430 stainless. This newest one is made from pure 304L stainless. Biggest difference was, that 430 (and of course mild steel) was alot more easier to cold form, as 304L starts to harden after some amount of hammering and shaping &gt; becomes brittle. <br> <br>I welded the rose petals together with a TIG, which I borrowed from a friend. Tungsten was already around 1/2&quot; long and last thing i managed to do with it was to attach the stem to the bud. After that it seemed impossible to weld rest of the leaves to the stem, as all of the leaves and petals were made from 0.5mm sheet (I believe its 25 or 26 gauge) and the welding arc got too long which resulted as a big gaping hole and a scorched leaf. So as all the shops were closed had to break out acetylene torch and silver soldered all the leaves etc. in place. <br> <br>I made the petals just by cutting a bunch of different size rectangulars, and then by using snips just made them closer to the desired shape. Didn't fuzz about the shape much, no outlining etc. because I was sure that I can't form them all to same shape or weld them exactly the same way. <br> <br>Steel was already polished so I had to choose the tools wisely as I did not want to scratch the steel. The weight of the rose got so out of hand because of the number of petals so I decided to use 2kg piece of Finnish bedrock as a stand. <br> <br>Took little bit less that 20 hours, just aviator snips, before mentioned welding machines, small tinsman's hammer, plastic hammer, rounded up pliers and my Leatherman Surge. <br> <br>And i made this for my mothers birthday present :)

I like the rock base. Good job!

i used this as a guildline for the rose i made, it really helped out alot thanks!!!! this is how one of them came out, got the stem on later.

I'm glad you liked it. Thanks.

Can you make a video of this?

Of which part? This is a project would be hard to show in a short video because a lot of the steps take a lot of time.

Great instructable, very inspiring.

I have made these before and just found this today! Great work! I have never used the ice cream cone shape though. I usually use Reuleaux triangles for the shape of the petals, although the first 2 usually start out ice cream cone shaped. I like the look of the Reuleaux triangles and I have always had an easy time making and finishing the flower with them, they have a nice shape to them, even when bent and curled, but don't make the flower too tall, although the ice cream cones you used don't seem to have made the flower tall either. Personal preference I guess. I think the ice cream cones might be a little harder to cut out, tighter turn for the semicircular top of them possibly, but I can't think of any other possible differences for using one over the other. <br> <br>I just made one of these the other day actually, for a very unique, and special person I really want to get to know better as an ice breaker, and I was Googling it see what other flowers people have made, that is how I found your 'Ible. I am planning on making a bouquet of assorted flowers for this person, and a rose needed to be included. I used 14 and 16 gauge metal though and with only a pair of needle nose pliers, ball peen hammer and a welder it took a lot of time to make this one, not too mention my hands hurt quite a bit, but I think it looks great. I also used a blowtorch, a lot. I had to use heavy material because I make them only from garbage, and heavier material was all anyone threw away at the dump lately. Was easier to weld then some thin stuff. My Hobart GF250 (I believe its a GF250, its old and the only info not faded too much is the HOBART letters) went down the other day, the Ford 300 I6 won't start so I bought a Mastercraft MIG welder for the time being. Got it on sale for $250 regular $650. Great little welder actually. I had to make some of my welds look as good as possible while welding because I couldn't grind them down because I only have 2 big 20 amp twin Makita grinders in my shop which are too large and hard to deal with for this type of work, but all the welds turned out looking pretty great! <br> <br>Sorry if the picture isn't the best, I used a cellphone and I had a hard time finding a good angle to photograph the flower. It really needs to be seen in person.

Nice job especially with the metal stock and tools you had. Keep up the good work and posting pics. I'm also about to buy a really nice TIG welder like I had in school. I have made a few of this with my Millermatic 252, but I spend far too much time grinding off the the unavoidable excess weld material left by MIG welding.

I didn't have much problem with excess from the MIG, but I knew I could not fix anything so I made sure do it good the first time. I prefer stick welders over anything else and I would suggest you take a peek at a Lincoln Electric Idealarc. I think they run about $800 at Princess Auto (They don't have them n their website however, but i have seen them in store), they have AC, DC, and DC Reverse and go from 50 amps up to 350 amps and you can weld pretty much anything with it. I have an older one and I love it, plus then you can use stainless rod and make your welds stainless steel as well. <br> <br>That is one thing about my rose, its not stainless so it rusts, so what I want to do is acid bath it, and clear coat the stem, then let the flower portion rust before clear coating it. I think it would look really cool if you let the flower rust to give it color, that brown red color. I sprayed it with WD-40 for now though so nothing rusts, but I rubbed a little off on the flower and that little test area has turned a nice burgundy color. <br> <br>I am going to start on a Carnation soon, they look similar to roses, but they have a lot larger folds and more random petal arrangement. I want it to be a good size, and nice and round like the snowballs on Snowball Trees.

I am thinking of making an orchid, a carnation, bleeding heart, a chrysanthemum would be cool but a huge pain I imagine, and a bird of paradise I think would be feasible. I will see how it goes.

loved your tutorial. here's my version. not quite as refined. i wanted it to be a close replica to a rose i had in the shop. so i folded some of the petals to make the classic point you see the petals making once the rose starts to die. i only have a die grinder and a bend grinder and some pliers and a millermatic 180 220v. i spend probably 15-18 total hours. 23 pieces in the bloom. and various other pieces. i couldnt get my thorns quite as nice as yours though, i plan on using a dremel to shape them next try. thanks again for your awesome tutorial.<br>

Very nice! It definitely has a different look to it. Like you described, It has more of an aged rose that has the petals beginning to curl. I'm glad you liked the instructable. I have made a couple of different types of flowers and I took pictures, so when I find time I will try and post new instructables.

wow. you must have a very nice girlfriend to do that.

I 'had' a nice girlfriend.&nbsp; We actually broke up before I gave it to her, so it will remain mine!!!!<br />

omg same thing happened to me. I think metal flowers are cursed.

they are cursed...I made one out of thin sheet copper...I left it for her and talked to her later and she said that she didn't want to date...although I felt it was that she didn't want to date me...I didn't take it back though...